EC-SAFEMOBIL project

Project name: Estimation and Control for Safe Wireless High Mobility Cooperative Industrial Systems 
Project acronym: EC-SAFEMOBIL
Dates: 12.07.2011 - 14.01.2016
Total budget:  6,169,404.00 EUR
Funding:  FP7 - ICT
Grant Agreement number: 288082
 

The project EC-SAFEMOBIL was devoted to the development of sufficiently accurate common motion estimation and control methods and technologies in order to reach levels of reliability and safety to facilitate unmanned vehicle deployment in a broad range of applications. It also included the development of a secure architecture and the middleware to support the implementation.

The focus of the project was on very accurate coupled motion of multiple entities and on distributed safe and reliable cooperation and coordination. The aim was to precisely control hundreds of entities efficiently and reliably, as well as to certify developed techniques to support the exploitation of unmanned platforms in non-restricted areas. This development was validated in multiple scenarios, ranging from landing a fixed-wing UAV on a car through distributed surveillance with multiple UAVs to automated forklifts in industrial warehouses.

Warehousing scenario of EC-SAFEMOBIL project

The focus of the LARICS team in the project was on the automated warehouse scenario, in which we worked on high accuracy marker-less mapping and localization, as well as decentralized control of multiple free-ranging industrial forklifts. In the final demonstrator we showed that our solution is accurate enough for pallet pickup and stacking. We also showed that our finite state machine based decentralized algorithm enables forklifts to negotiate and resolve conflicts, preventing deadlocks in the system.

 

Pallet stacking experiment showcasing high precision of vehicle localization (vehicle and testing area provided by Euroimpianti SPA)

Two forklifts resolving conflict in the testing area (vehicles and testing area provided by Euroimpianti SPA)

The project was realized in coopearation with the following partners:

  1. Fundacion Andaluza para el desarrollo aeroespacial (FADA-CATEC) (ES)
  2. Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft und Raumfahrt EV (DLR) (DE)
  3. Airbus DS GMBH (Astrium) (DE)
  4. Indra sistemas S.A. (ES)
  5. Euroimpianti SPA (IT)
  6. Universidad de Sevilla (ES)
  7. Universitaet Duisburg-Essen (DE)
  8. University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (HR)
  9. Selex ES LTD (UK)

News

Paper “High-accuracy vehicle localization for autonomous warehousing”, written by Goran Vasiljević, Damjan Miklić, Ivica Draganjac and prof. Zdenko Kovačić will be published in the Robotics and Computer-integrated Manufacturing journal. The paper presents the algorithm stack for high-precision autonomous vehicle localization, developed within FP7 EC-SAFEMOBIL project. The proposed methodology satisfies the industrial requirements for localization accuracy and has been verified by extensive experiments in realistic industrial conditions. Full paper can be accessed via the following link, which will be available until July 3, 2016.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
EC-SAFEMOBIL 7th Consortium Meeting

Our Zdenko Kovačić and Goran Vasiljević attended the EC-SAFEMOBIL 7th Consortium Meeting that was held on June 17–18, 2015, in Seville, Spain. They gave the report on the latest results on precise localisation and distributed control of multiple LGVs, two main goals of the Scenario 4: Autonomous Distributed Warehousing. On their way home, they stopped shortly in Lisbon, Portugal and enjoyed sightseeing in this beautiful European metropole.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
Demonstration held by the LARICS team...

From 19th until 21st of January, the Italian company Euroimpianti hosted the 6th EC-SAFEMOBIL consortium meeting in the town of Schio. Using two autonomous forklifts produced by Euroimpianti, the LARICS team held two successful demonstrations of decentralized control and markerless localization developed within the EC-SAFEMOBIL project.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
EC-SAFEMOBIL review meeting

An EC-SAFEMOBIL review meeting was held in Brussels. Following the two day preparation, the SAFEMOBIL consortium presented the developments and results of 5 scenarios. With minor complaints about scenario 3, the progress report was accepted and the project continues according to plan.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
EC-SAFEMOBIL experiments with a new LGV

Dr. sc. Damjan Miklić and Goran Vasiljević have arrived in Euroimpianti, where they will be experimenting with a new type of autonomous Laser Guided Vehicle (LGV). The list of tasks contains calibrating the LGV odometry, testing communication with new laser range sensors and control of steer and traction motors from the LARICS software.

Author: Anamarija Miličević

Three days spent in DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany during the General meeting of the FP7-IP project were productive and very memorable. Being in one of the leading European research institutions is exciting by itself. But having the privilege to see the control centre of the Columbia space station, see and talk about new robotic systems designed in DLR, will remain inspiring for our own research work. The evening spent in Munich watching the Football Worldcup opening match Croatia vs. Brazil will unfortunately be remembered for different reasons.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
FP7-IP EC-SAFEMOBIL General meeting...

During three days, February 03-05, the representatives of all partners of the EC-SAFEMOBIL Consortium gathered at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing to discuss issues relevant for success of this four-year FP7 project. Along with  a series of presentations and discussions, our visitors made a short tour around our robotics research-oriented laboratories (ACROSS, LARICS, AMOR, LAPOST). The evenings were reserved for sightseeing of the Zagreb old town and dining on some typical Croatian dishes.

Author: Anamarija Miličević

Prof. Zdenko Kovačić attended the 2nd year EC-SAFEMOBIL Review Meeting in Brussels, Belgium where he presented the most recent results of the LARICS research team in this FP7 project. The meeting finished successfully with recommendations of the Project Officer and the Review Committee members for financing of the third year joint research efforts of all partners in the Project Consortium.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
EC-SAFEMOBIL and ASSISI_bf projects...

LARICS professors Zdenko Kovačić and Stjepan Bogdan took part in the panel session “Advanced Cooperative Systems – Research Challenges and Application Opportunities” which was held at the International Conference on Computer as a Tool EUROCON 2013 in Zagreb, where they presented the research goals and results of two LARICS FP7 projects, EC-SAFEMOBIL and ASSISI. 

Author: Anamarija Miličević
Successfull EC-SAFEMOBIL review meeting

The review meeting for the 1st year of FP7 project EC-SAFEMOBIL was held in Brussels, June 13. Following a detailed preparation of deliverables, Professor Kovačić and all the partners in the consortium put a lot of effort into their presentations, ensuring a positive response of the Project Officer and reviewers.  The project continues, and we are looking forward to testing some of our algorithms in Euroimpianti facilities. The review meeting for 2nd year will be held in October 2013.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
LARICS team visited FP7-IP...

A LARICS team, consisting of prof. Zdenko Kovačić, Damjan Miklić and Frano Petric, visited Euroimpianti headquarters in Schio, Italy. The purpose of the visit was to discuss further collaboration on the FP7 project EC-SAFEMOBIL, specifically to arrange the technical details of localization tests that are to be performed in Euroimpianti facilites in the beginning of May.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
Successful testing of distributed...

Basketball, volleyball and other sports activities in the nearby gym were replaced by exciting first experiments with four Pioneer mobile robots simultaneously controlled with a new distributed control algorithm being developed within the FP7 project EC-SAFEMOBIL. The players of the LARICS „Night Owls“ team were Damjan Miklić, Tamara Petrović, Ivica Draganjac, Frano Petric, and Tomislav Haus. The results were very promising and inspiring for further research.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
Six Pioneer P3-DX Robots Arrived for...

These days LARICS has experienced the invasion of new robots, which rushed in good hands of our students. Six mobile robots Pioneer P3-DX from Adept mobile robots will be used in research pursued within the 6.2 M EUR FP7-IP project Estimation and Control for Safe Wireless High Mobility Cooperative Industrial Systems – EC-SAFEMOBIL. This will allow practical demonstrations of distributed safe reliable cooperation and coordination of many high mobility entities.

Author: Alan Vukić
The Faculty Day – Poster...

Poster presentations of three LARICS projects, “Exploration robot for fire fighting units“, “Electronic differential for small electric vehicle” and FP7 project EC-SAFEMOBIL “Estimation and Control for Safe Wireless High Mobility Cooperative Industrial Systems” will be held on November 25th, 2011 as a part of the Faculty Day programme. The posters presentations (in Croatian) can be seen by visiting the following links: Exploration robot VIV,EC-SAFEMOBIL.

Author: Alan Vukić
Fp7-IP project EC-SAFEMOBIL takes off

The European Commission, under the 7th Frame Program, has provided funds to perform the project SAFEMOBIL (Estimation and Control for Safe Wireless High Mobility Cooperative Industrial Systems), recognizing the growing importance of the UAV market and applications, which in the case of SAFEMOBIL project, are related to the utilization of autonomous systems in general and UAVs in particular, in many applications that cannot be accomplished with manned systems for including disaster management, the monitoring and measurement of events, rescue missions, particularly in stormy conditions and, in general all mission where there are risks for human beings.

Author: Alan Vukić